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What do you think of the Sequel Trilogy? - a general discussion thread — Page 6

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Hal 9000 said:

TFA had the easier job of setting up the story of the ST, and made what I consider a bad call in recreating the plot mechanics of the original film(s) of rebels vs empire. It deliberately chose not to build on the story as it had developed so far but to regress and recreate. I’m not interested in blaming specific people, so I personify the film when doing so because I don’t know if these decisions were mandated from on high or JJ’s own insistence. TFA works pretty good at executing this unfortunate decision and introduces a colorful cast of characters in a fun ride. You’re all right with the lack of a solid ending because you understand it’s part one of three. TFA bears its own flaws well enough, but leeches somewhat on what would follow and cannot stand on its own.

TLJ actually has some kind of a central idea, that idea is just kind of sophomoric. TLJ smells the above about its predecessor and wants to correct it before it’s too late. It does so respectfully, taking the events and story so far seriously even as it changes our view of them. It’s a critique of TFA and a dare for IX to be great.

IX failed that dare altogether. TLJ said, “I dare you to do better” without knowing it would be the TFA crew the message would be sent to. TROS was written on the bus to school and the administrators weren’t willing to give it more time. So, we got a bullshit story of “nuh-uh, Snoke didn’t really die, he was just Palpatine all along.” TROS is that kid who stubbornly insists he is winning a playground game and is the worst at turn-based storytelling games. I don’t have many good things to say about TROS. It doesn’t seem to say much of anything, at least when you exclude things the OT already said. There’s no new light cast on anything and nothing to go home thinking about that ROTJ didn’t do much better. It’s a shame for the entire Star Wars saga to end on such a note. I laughed through my first viewing because otherwise I’d just feel embarrassed and sad. It’s enough to hope for a 10-12 trilogy someday just to have another chance at doing what 7-9 ought to have done. Just down the road enough for the chance that enough turnover would let it be fresh.

I think your take on TROS is partly right, but I don’t think you are seeing it in the right way. The ending for ROTJ was epic. That is truly the huge ending in the saga. Even in Lucas’s original ideas, he had nothing truly planned beyond bringing the OT cast back to hand off the baton to a new generation. That lack of deep planning shows. But it also works for the story. In the OT the rebellion was fighting the fully formed and powerful empire. In the ST they are trying to save what is left of the New Republic from the reminants of the Empire. In some ways this was done to better effect in book form with Timothy Zahn’s trilogy. But in some ways that wasn’t as epic a story from the POV of the Skywalker/Jedi story. The ST proposes that something survived ROTJ and is rebuilding and the heroes must stop this rise of a new Empire before it is too late. That is complicated by an early strike on the fledgling new Jedi order that has sent Luke into hiding (George came up with that one). The promise of a new Jedi order from ROTJ is unfulfilled. So the ST trilogy must save the republic, stop the Empire from winning again, and start the Jedi again.

It does this by finally addressing an element from the PT that the PT Jedi teachings were flawed. Lucas set this up very nicely. To avoid the Dark Side a Jedi isn’t to just avoid the dark side, they are to avoid attachments which can lead to fear, anger, and then hate. So the Jedi in the PT aren’t teaching their Padawans how to avoid the Dark Side pitfalls, they are teaching them to avoid any hint of any path that strays even close. This is why Anakin fell. The ST has Luke come to this realization and be wallowing is dispair on how to proceed. He wants to restore the Jedi Order but he made the same mistakes. The Jedi need to be reborn in a new way. This fits with Lucas’s idea of the ST passing on he baton. Too many fans wanted a new Luke, Han, Leia trilogy when that was never what we were going to get. Luke, Han and Leia are supporting characters in the ST. They always were going to be. Hamill and Lucas both mentioned Hamill having the Kenobi role in the ST and when Qui-gon died in the PT, I expected that Luke would die in the ST. The is the way of mythic stories, the old generation passed so the new can take over.

And I feel TROS epicly rounds out the saga by bringing back Palpatine as a clone. And his return is like the rest of the ST. He has not risen to full power yet and must be stopped before it is too late. Rather than resetting the OT, the ST has reset to a point in ROTS where the old Republic could still have been saved. I find the ST a nice mix of the PT and OT. I also find it has fewer flaws than the PT. Lucas’s story telling is far too subtle in the PT. It is great if you like uncovering the layers, but far too many didn’t want to bother and the clear story has far too many holes in it. Too many mysteries unsolved. The ST returned to the OT’s more blunt story telling while having a few mysteries. Abrams crafted TFA with far too many for a trilogy. And wisely TLJ shuts a few of them down. TROS doesn’t really course correct as much as some people think. The ST was setup, not to be a restart of ANH, but to put the galaxy in the position that this time we need to stop them BEFORE this new enemy, a remnant of the old Empire, takes over again. The First Order is never the entrenched evil empire in the ST, only the rising danger. Leia’s resistance is positioned to block them. And they know it because they go after them. Even in TROS after a year they still haven’t solidified any hold on the Galaxy and victory is still possible for the resistance.

I think there is too much emphasis on the flaws of the ST without looking at how it succeeds. TFA is full of flaws forcing TLJ to cut a couple off and TROS has to tie up everything. And if you look carefully, the entire ST follows Palpatine’s vacillating. Palpatine doesn’t care if Kylo Ren or Rey wins, he just wants to possess the winner. The ST also bounced back and forth. First Kylo Ren is set on proving that Rey is nothing and no one, before he finds out she really is someone. Reversals are a staple of story telling. Think of LOTR. Who destroys the ring? It isn’t Frodo or Sam, it is Gollum. Star Wars is based on myths and in those ancient myths, things don’t always play out like you think. I think the ST does an imperfect but good job of using that mythic structure. It has a solid core, but if you don’t look beyond the surface, you won’t see it. Very like the PT and Lucas’s too subtle concepts.

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 (Edited)

I don’t think fans really wanted another Luke, Leia, and Han trilogy per say. I know for me I just wanted something that respected them as characters and felt like a natural progression to where we last saw them. Instead it feels like a regression.

Luke - He ended Return of the Jedi as the last Jedi. In the Sequel Trilogy he ends his story arc no different from where he was during the end of the previous trilogy. The only difference is he’s now broken and depressed as he failed. I didn’t need Luke to be Superman but I do feel seeing him pass on what he knew to the next generation as foreshadowed by his talk with Yoda was an essential part of his character development that felt promised to be told. He could fail at first to convey a Fisher King like narrative but instead he fails and everything is given to Rey because the plot says so and not because she earned it. Luke could definitely fail at first after following the teachings of the Jedi that came before but it’s poorly written and conveyed.

Leia - She’s in the same position she was at the start of A New Hope. She’s leading the Rebel Alliance then and now she’s leading the Resistance. The Resistance is the bare bones equivalent. Her growth to becoming a senator and even Supreme Chancellor is squandered. She even fails at being a mother.

Han - He’s back to smuggling and where he was during The Empire Strikes Back. He doesn’t continue growing into a selfless individual and become a respected figure in the Republic as his arc in Return of the Jedi implied when he became a general in the Rebel Alliance. Instead he’s back to smuggling, failed as a father, and loss the Millennium Falcon for reasons. Everything he overcame is thrown out the window.

All of these issues stem from The Force Awakens decision to be a soft reboot. The characters are mostly delightful and fun but the problem is the story they’re going through has no sense of consequence or baring on what comes afterwards. Hardly anything in the film has an emotional payoff or point in viewing things retrospectively. It’s there just to look like Star Wars but it doesn’t actually feel like Star Wars as it serves no purpose in the grand scheme of things.

I was ready to explore a new generation of characters with the trio serving as mentors. I wanted to see the children of Han and Leia and if in the cards Luke. I knew though George wasn’t so keen on the Expanded Universe in part because he didn’t see Luke as having children. So Luke having a kid may not have been likely but he could have served as a surrogate type parent. Instead we’re following characters they’ve never met or don’t have a connection to them directly or indirectly. The Skywalker saga is about generations of the same family and suddenly not following them in favour of a “Nobody” then Palpatine just feels very anticlimactic.

You don’t need your heroes to become regressed failures to convey a good story to prop up a new generation.

“Heroes come in all sizes, and you don’t have to be a giant hero. You can be a very small hero. It’s just as important to understand that accepting self-responsibility for the things you do, having good manners, caring about other people - these are heroic acts. Everybody has the choice of being a hero or not being a hero every day of their lives.” - George Lucas

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Stardust1138 said:

I don’t think fans really wanted another Luke, Leia, and Han trilogy per say. I know for me I just wanted something that respected them as characters and felt like a natural progression to where we last saw them. Instead it feels like a regression.

Luke - He ended Return of the Jedi as the last Jedi. In the Sequel Trilogy he ends his story arc no different from where he was during the end of the previous trilogy. The only difference is he’s now broken and depressed as he failed. I didn’t need Luke to be Superman but I do feel seeing him pass on what he knew to the next generation as foreshadowed by his talk with Yoda was an essential part of his character development that felt promised to be told. He could fail at first to convey a Fisher King like narrative but instead he fails and everything is given to Rey because the plot says so and not because she earned it. Luke could definitely fail at first after following the teachings of the Jedi that came before but it’s poorly written and conveyed.

Leia - She’s in the same position she was at the start of A New Hope. She’s leading the Rebel Alliance then and now she’s leading the Resistance. Her growth to becoming a senator and even Supreme Chancellor is squandered. She fails at being a mother.

Han - He’s back to smuggling and where he was at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. He doesn’t continue to grow and become a respected figure in the Republic as his arc in Return of the Jedi implied when he became a general in the Rebel Alliance. Instead he’s back to smuggling, failed as a father, and loss the Millennium Falcon for reasons. Everything he overcame is thrown out the window.

All of these issues stem from The Force Awakens decision to be a soft reboot. The characters are mostly delightful and fun but the problem is the story they’re going through has no sense of consequence or baring on what comes afterwards. Hardly anything in the film has an emotional payoff or point in viewing things retrospectively. It’s there just to look like Star Wars but it doesn’t actually feel like Star Wars as it serves no purpose in the grand scheme of things.

I was ready to explore a new generation of characters with the trio serving as mentors. I wanted to see the children of Han and Leia and if in the cards Luke. I knew though George wasn’t so keen on the Expanded Universe in part because he didn’t see Luke as having children. So Luke having a kid may not have been likely but he could have served as a surrogate type parent. Instead we’re following characters they’ve never met or don’t have a connection to them directly or indirectly. The Skywalker saga is about generations of the same family and suddenly not following them in favour of a “Nobody” then Palpatine just feels very anticlimactic.

You don’t need your heroes to become regressed failures to convey a good story to prop up a new generation.

This makes the white-hot outrage over Luke’s characterisation in TLJ even more laughable.

At the end of RotJ, Han and Leia are respected leaders and heroes to the New Republic. Fast forward to TFA and Han is back to being the scoundrel smuggler we were introduced to in the first movie, and Leia is back to being a Rebel leader, and thus we have two characters who made a 360° turn.

It’s strange how Abrams hasn’t received any backlash for this deliberate regression, but Rian Johnson gets all the blame for ruining Luke Skywalker.

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In my experience, Rian gets a lot of blame for things he wasn’t able to do anything about.

“Remember, the Force will be with you. Always.”

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 (Edited)

fmalover said:

This makes the white-hot outrage over Luke’s characterisation in TLJ even more laughable.

At the end of RotJ, Han and Leia are respected leaders and heroes to the New Republic. Fast forward to TFA and Han is back to being the scoundrel smuggler we were introduced to in the first movie, and Leia is back to being a Rebel leader, and thus we have two characters who made a 360° turn.

It’s strange how Abrams hasn’t received any backlash for this deliberate regression, but Rian Johnson gets all the blame for ruining Luke Skywalker.

jedi_bendu said:

In my experience, Rian gets a lot of blame for things he wasn’t able to do anything about.

There’s a lot of problems with characterisation at the hands of what Rian did to Luke as his arc is very much following the same trajectory of Return of the Jedi but at the same time it’s not entirely his fault either. He was put in a position that he had to try to make sense of how Luke was already so out of character leaving his family and friends without reason. He went looking for the first Jedi Temple for reasons. He doesn’t even tell Han or Leia why. He just leaves them without a trace and on a wild bantha chase that ulimately meant nothing.

I think the reason J.J. gets so much of a free pass is he made something that looks like Star Wars and when you don’t think too much it really hits the beats of the first two films in particular. A lot of people want Star Wars to feel like these two but George decided to grow it beyond just that. It was no longer just a Saturday matinee adventure serial or dreamlike tragedy. It was also a child’s fantasy, a film noir mystery, and opera to name but three subgenres within how it evolved. Even The Clone Wars series tried very hard to make each season different. The first season is about showing models to kids on how to live the rest of their lives, the second is showing bounty hunters, and it continues to the very end with Yoda’s Arc exploring the Force Priestesses and the deeper metaphysical side of the Force. George never restorted to doing the same thrills.

There was poetry of course and similar storybeats but it was always different. Like in A New Hope the Death Star conveys Luke’s external struggle to defeat the Empire but in Return of the Jedi the situation is much more internal on Death Star II. It’s Luke going into the heart of what twisted and converted his father. The same thing with Anakin destroying the Trade Federation ship. It was an accident versus Luke who trusted the Force with destroying the Death Star. The moments and poetry have to be different to work. You don’t really get that sense in the Sequel Trilogy.

“Heroes come in all sizes, and you don’t have to be a giant hero. You can be a very small hero. It’s just as important to understand that accepting self-responsibility for the things you do, having good manners, caring about other people - these are heroic acts. Everybody has the choice of being a hero or not being a hero every day of their lives.” - George Lucas

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fmalover said:

Stardust1138 said:

I don’t think fans really wanted another Luke, Leia, and Han trilogy per say. I know for me I just wanted something that respected them as characters and felt like a natural progression to where we last saw them. Instead it feels like a regression.

Luke - He ended Return of the Jedi as the last Jedi. In the Sequel Trilogy he ends his story arc no different from where he was during the end of the previous trilogy. The only difference is he’s now broken and depressed as he failed. I didn’t need Luke to be Superman but I do feel seeing him pass on what he knew to the next generation as foreshadowed by his talk with Yoda was an essential part of his character development that felt promised to be told. He could fail at first to convey a Fisher King like narrative but instead he fails and everything is given to Rey because the plot says so and not because she earned it. Luke could definitely fail at first after following the teachings of the Jedi that came before but it’s poorly written and conveyed.

Leia - She’s in the same position she was at the start of A New Hope. She’s leading the Rebel Alliance then and now she’s leading the Resistance. Her growth to becoming a senator and even Supreme Chancellor is squandered. She fails at being a mother.

Han - He’s back to smuggling and where he was at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. He doesn’t continue to grow and become a respected figure in the Republic as his arc in Return of the Jedi implied when he became a general in the Rebel Alliance. Instead he’s back to smuggling, failed as a father, and loss the Millennium Falcon for reasons. Everything he overcame is thrown out the window.

All of these issues stem from The Force Awakens decision to be a soft reboot. The characters are mostly delightful and fun but the problem is the story they’re going through has no sense of consequence or baring on what comes afterwards. Hardly anything in the film has an emotional payoff or point in viewing things retrospectively. It’s there just to look like Star Wars but it doesn’t actually feel like Star Wars as it serves no purpose in the grand scheme of things.

I was ready to explore a new generation of characters with the trio serving as mentors. I wanted to see the children of Han and Leia and if in the cards Luke. I knew though George wasn’t so keen on the Expanded Universe in part because he didn’t see Luke as having children. So Luke having a kid may not have been likely but he could have served as a surrogate type parent. Instead we’re following characters they’ve never met or don’t have a connection to them directly or indirectly. The Skywalker saga is about generations of the same family and suddenly not following them in favour of a “Nobody” then Palpatine just feels very anticlimactic.

You don’t need your heroes to become regressed failures to convey a good story to prop up a new generation.

This makes the white-hot outrage over Luke’s characterisation in TLJ even more laughable.

At the end of RotJ, Han and Leia are respected leaders and heroes to the New Republic. Fast forward to TFA and Han is back to being the scoundrel smuggler we were introduced to in the first movie, and Leia is back to being a Rebel leader, and thus we have two characters who made a 360° turn.

It’s strange how Abrams hasn’t received any backlash for this deliberate regression, but Rian Johnson gets all the blame for ruining Luke Skywalker.

Well, it wasn’t even Abrams who did that setup, it was George.

And I disagree that Leia is in the same place. Before she was trying to bring down the Empire and now she is trying to save the New Republic from the First Order. She is fighting the entire time to preserve what she had achieved. While some argue the wording of the opening crawls implies that the First Order had won, the fleet we see in the end of TROS shows that they had not yet won, just intimidated the various system governments.

Han was going to die in George’s version anyway (so was Luke for that matter). Abrams at least gave us a glorious scene for him to exit on. And it is far from pointless. Johnson has that event derail Kylo and it ultimately leads to his return to the light in TROS. So it is a pivotal scene for the characters. And face it, most of us wanted to see the Rogue Han Solo over a respectable Han Solo. It was a good character choice in many ways.

And ultimately when you come down to the myths and legends that Star Wars is built on, everything about the former heroes not still being on top of things falls perfectly in line. Han went back to what was comfortable, Leia is protecting the Republic like she fought the Empire, the fall of Kylo Ren and the destruction of his school has ripped off the veneer of mastery that Luke had put on to reveal the flaws in his character. Luke more than the others has become a different mythic figure. Not the wise old man waiting for the hero, but the disillusioned hero not ready to help the hero.

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 (Edited)

yotsuya said:

fmalover said:

Stardust1138 said:

I don’t think fans really wanted another Luke, Leia, and Han trilogy per say. I know for me I just wanted something that respected them as characters and felt like a natural progression to where we last saw them. Instead it feels like a regression.

Luke - He ended Return of the Jedi as the last Jedi. In the Sequel Trilogy he ends his story arc no different from where he was during the end of the previous trilogy. The only difference is he’s now broken and depressed as he failed. I didn’t need Luke to be Superman but I do feel seeing him pass on what he knew to the next generation as foreshadowed by his talk with Yoda was an essential part of his character development that felt promised to be told. He could fail at first to convey a Fisher King like narrative but instead he fails and everything is given to Rey because the plot says so and not because she earned it. Luke could definitely fail at first after following the teachings of the Jedi that came before but it’s poorly written and conveyed.

Leia - She’s in the same position she was at the start of A New Hope. She’s leading the Rebel Alliance then and now she’s leading the Resistance. Her growth to becoming a senator and even Supreme Chancellor is squandered. She fails at being a mother.

Han - He’s back to smuggling and where he was at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. He doesn’t continue to grow and become a respected figure in the Republic as his arc in Return of the Jedi implied when he became a general in the Rebel Alliance. Instead he’s back to smuggling, failed as a father, and loss the Millennium Falcon for reasons. Everything he overcame is thrown out the window.

All of these issues stem from The Force Awakens decision to be a soft reboot. The characters are mostly delightful and fun but the problem is the story they’re going through has no sense of consequence or baring on what comes afterwards. Hardly anything in the film has an emotional payoff or point in viewing things retrospectively. It’s there just to look like Star Wars but it doesn’t actually feel like Star Wars as it serves no purpose in the grand scheme of things.

I was ready to explore a new generation of characters with the trio serving as mentors. I wanted to see the children of Han and Leia and if in the cards Luke. I knew though George wasn’t so keen on the Expanded Universe in part because he didn’t see Luke as having children. So Luke having a kid may not have been likely but he could have served as a surrogate type parent. Instead we’re following characters they’ve never met or don’t have a connection to them directly or indirectly. The Skywalker saga is about generations of the same family and suddenly not following them in favour of a “Nobody” then Palpatine just feels very anticlimactic.

You don’t need your heroes to become regressed failures to convey a good story to prop up a new generation.

This makes the white-hot outrage over Luke’s characterisation in TLJ even more laughable.

At the end of RotJ, Han and Leia are respected leaders and heroes to the New Republic. Fast forward to TFA and Han is back to being the scoundrel smuggler we were introduced to in the first movie, and Leia is back to being a Rebel leader, and thus we have two characters who made a 360° turn.

It’s strange how Abrams hasn’t received any backlash for this deliberate regression, but Rian Johnson gets all the blame for ruining Luke Skywalker.

Well, it wasn’t even Abrams who did that setup, it was George.

And I disagree that Leia is in the same place. Before she was trying to bring down the Empire and now she is trying to save the New Republic from the First Order. She is fighting the entire time to preserve what she had achieved. While some argue the wording of the opening crawls implies that the First Order had won, the fleet we see in the end of TROS shows that they had not yet won, just intimidated the various system governments.

Han was going to die in George’s version anyway (so was Luke for that matter). Abrams at least gave us a glorious scene for him to exit on. And it is far from pointless. Johnson has that event derail Kylo and it ultimately leads to his return to the light in TROS. So it is a pivotal scene for the characters. And face it, most of us wanted to see the Rogue Han Solo over a respectable Han Solo. It was a good character choice in many ways.

And ultimately when you come down to the myths and legends that Star Wars is built on, everything about the former heroes not still being on top of things falls perfectly in line. Han went back to what was comfortable, Leia is protecting the Republic like she fought the Empire, the fall of Kylo Ren and the destruction of his school has ripped off the veneer of mastery that Luke had put on to reveal the flaws in his character. Luke more than the others has become a different mythic figure. Not the wise old man waiting for the hero, but the disillusioned hero not ready to help the hero.

It was J.J. though. In Return of the Jedi it’s naturally implied as part of the story and the films before it that the part of destroying the Galactic Empire is over and that re-establishing will be the next step as there’s a power vacuum created by the Empire being defeated but also the Hutts as well. That will be a tricky situation to get under control if someone tries to exploit it. There’s no set up for the Empire to rise again except possibly the fleet we see at the Battle of Endor that seems to have escaped but even then that doesn’t explain how they’d become the First Order and have the funds to build a bigger Death Star and have a huge fleet. It might be in a novel but you shouldn’t have to need supplement material for what should be in the movie to explain essential story.

It’s too late. As Holdo says, "We are the spark that that’ll light the fire, that will restore the Republic. The spark is that the Resistance must survive. This is our mission.”. The New Republic is gone. It was destroyed by Starkiller Base as the people who show up at the end of The Rise of Skywalker are ordinary people who’ve had enough of the First Order and possibly Final Order. It’s never said they’re part of system governments but people.

They were both going to die in George’s Sequel Trilogy but we only know how with Luke. It was going to be in Episode IX after he restored the Jedi Order. It’s difficult to say how Han would have died but Harrison Ford said it would’ve happened in Episode VII like we got during the lead up to The Force Awakens. I’d say it’s still pointless with Kylo/Ben in the end as you have to take in account Leia too. She sensed the death of him if she continued her Jedi training. He still died. His parents both died for nothing. He was redeemed and saved Rey but that’s it. No Skywalker lived on to continue the legacy. Instead Rey is the last one standing but she’s a Palpatine and the Republic must be established again as it was destroyed. It’s more or less the same story position as Return of the Jedi. How is everyone going to react when they find out Rey is related to Palpatine? Will it be like in the books when Leia nearly loss everything when it was revealed she was Darth Vader’s daughter? It creates so many unnecessary problems and complications. It may have been fun to see Han rogue at first but it’s regressing his character and not letting him grow up as he did across the entire Original Trilogy. He went from selfish and self centred to one of the Rebel Alliance’s most loyal members and very selfless towards Leia and his friends. It’s only natural to expect him to continue to grow. They could’ve still played with Han’s smuggler backstory under the power vacuum scenario since it’s all about crime syndicates in George’s story for example trying to overtake the Republic but not at the expense of his personal growth.

It’s all about the execution of said ideas. Why does Han need to go back to the only thing he’s good at? Is he not allowed to rise above what he worked very hard to overcome with the help of others? The Republic is gone. They’re trying to restore it just as the Rebel Alliance was trying to do. Leia is doing the same thing she was thirty years ago. She’s still fighting an Empire in so many words. With Luke though George also had him as broken but he overcame it and in the end restored the Jedi Order. It’s all about execution and respecting character growth. Instead we got a failure who passed on the mantle to Rey because the plot says she must be the last Jedi now. It doesn’t ever show us why she’s earned the right to it. It’s just given to her as the plot says she’s the protagonist like with the lightsaber, the Millennium Falcon, Luke’s X-Wing, and even Leia’s training. Leia will train a Palpatine but not her own son? Star Wars was an ecological value system before and the collective whole. It was not not just one individual collecting everything and being the only hero. Even with Anakin being the Chosen One he still needed help from Luke. Just as Han needed help with overcoming his smuggling past. Just as Leia needed help to get off the Death Star. Just as Luke needed help destroying the Death Star. It was a value system of the collective whole of people helping people.

These things just don’t sit right with me. It needs to be clear within the narrative what is going on. You shouldn’t need to read or look up supplement material to understand the story the films are trying to convey. There’s only one rare instance I find in George’s story where you may need supplement material to understand something and that’s the mystery of Sifo-Dyas. However it’s something he planned to explain in his Sequels as he was the secret apprentice of Palpatine. So it would’ve been addressed eventually and supplement material wouldn’t be needed for it.

Ulimately on my part I’m glad you enjoy the the Sequels. I genuinely wish I could see the things you see. They are pretty fun on their own merits in some ways and have some Star Wars like qualities but ulimately I find they’re lacking in consistency that makes sense within the context of the first six films.

“Heroes come in all sizes, and you don’t have to be a giant hero. You can be a very small hero. It’s just as important to understand that accepting self-responsibility for the things you do, having good manners, caring about other people - these are heroic acts. Everybody has the choice of being a hero or not being a hero every day of their lives.” - George Lucas

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Stardust1138 said:

yotsuya said:

fmalover said:

Stardust1138 said:

I don’t think fans really wanted another Luke, Leia, and Han trilogy per say. I know for me I just wanted something that respected them as characters and felt like a natural progression to where we last saw them. Instead it feels like a regression.

Luke - He ended Return of the Jedi as the last Jedi. In the Sequel Trilogy he ends his story arc no different from where he was during the end of the previous trilogy. The only difference is he’s now broken and depressed as he failed. I didn’t need Luke to be Superman but I do feel seeing him pass on what he knew to the next generation as foreshadowed by his talk with Yoda was an essential part of his character development that felt promised to be told. He could fail at first to convey a Fisher King like narrative but instead he fails and everything is given to Rey because the plot says so and not because she earned it. Luke could definitely fail at first after following the teachings of the Jedi that came before but it’s poorly written and conveyed.

Leia - She’s in the same position she was at the start of A New Hope. She’s leading the Rebel Alliance then and now she’s leading the Resistance. Her growth to becoming a senator and even Supreme Chancellor is squandered. She fails at being a mother.

Han - He’s back to smuggling and where he was at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. He doesn’t continue to grow and become a respected figure in the Republic as his arc in Return of the Jedi implied when he became a general in the Rebel Alliance. Instead he’s back to smuggling, failed as a father, and loss the Millennium Falcon for reasons. Everything he overcame is thrown out the window.

All of these issues stem from The Force Awakens decision to be a soft reboot. The characters are mostly delightful and fun but the problem is the story they’re going through has no sense of consequence or baring on what comes afterwards. Hardly anything in the film has an emotional payoff or point in viewing things retrospectively. It’s there just to look like Star Wars but it doesn’t actually feel like Star Wars as it serves no purpose in the grand scheme of things.

I was ready to explore a new generation of characters with the trio serving as mentors. I wanted to see the children of Han and Leia and if in the cards Luke. I knew though George wasn’t so keen on the Expanded Universe in part because he didn’t see Luke as having children. So Luke having a kid may not have been likely but he could have served as a surrogate type parent. Instead we’re following characters they’ve never met or don’t have a connection to them directly or indirectly. The Skywalker saga is about generations of the same family and suddenly not following them in favour of a “Nobody” then Palpatine just feels very anticlimactic.

You don’t need your heroes to become regressed failures to convey a good story to prop up a new generation.

This makes the white-hot outrage over Luke’s characterisation in TLJ even more laughable.

At the end of RotJ, Han and Leia are respected leaders and heroes to the New Republic. Fast forward to TFA and Han is back to being the scoundrel smuggler we were introduced to in the first movie, and Leia is back to being a Rebel leader, and thus we have two characters who made a 360° turn.

It’s strange how Abrams hasn’t received any backlash for this deliberate regression, but Rian Johnson gets all the blame for ruining Luke Skywalker.

Well, it wasn’t even Abrams who did that setup, it was George.

And I disagree that Leia is in the same place. Before she was trying to bring down the Empire and now she is trying to save the New Republic from the First Order. She is fighting the entire time to preserve what she had achieved. While some argue the wording of the opening crawls implies that the First Order had won, the fleet we see in the end of TROS shows that they had not yet won, just intimidated the various system governments.

Han was going to die in George’s version anyway (so was Luke for that matter). Abrams at least gave us a glorious scene for him to exit on. And it is far from pointless. Johnson has that event derail Kylo and it ultimately leads to his return to the light in TROS. So it is a pivotal scene for the characters. And face it, most of us wanted to see the Rogue Han Solo over a respectable Han Solo. It was a good character choice in many ways.

And ultimately when you come down to the myths and legends that Star Wars is built on, everything about the former heroes not still being on top of things falls perfectly in line. Han went back to what was comfortable, Leia is protecting the Republic like she fought the Empire, the fall of Kylo Ren and the destruction of his school has ripped off the veneer of mastery that Luke had put on to reveal the flaws in his character. Luke more than the others has become a different mythic figure. Not the wise old man waiting for the hero, but the disillusioned hero not ready to help the hero.

It was J.J. though. In Return of the Jedi it’s naturally implied as part of the story and the films before it that the part of destroying the Galactic Empire is over and that re-establishing will be the next step as there’s a power vacuum created by the Empire being defeated but also the Hutts as well. That will be a tricky situation to get under control if someone tries to exploit it. There’s no set up for the Empire to rise again except possibly the fleet we see at the Battle of Endor that seems to have escaped but even then that doesn’t explain how they’d become the First Order and have the funds to build a bigger Death Star and have a huge fleet. It might be in a novel but you shouldn’t have to need supplement material for what should be in the movie to explain essential story.

It’s too late. As Holdo says, "We are the spark that that’ll light the fire, that will restore the Republic. The spark is that the Resistance must survive. This is our mission.”. The New Republic is gone. It was destroyed by Starkiller Base as the people who show up at the end of The Rise of Skywalker are ordinary people who’ve had enough of the First Order and possibly Final Order. It’s never said they’re part of system governments but people.

They were both going to die in George’s Sequel Trilogy but we only know how with Luke. It was going to be in Episode IX after he restored the Jedi Order. It’s difficult to say how Han would have died but Harrison Ford said it would’ve happened in Episode VII like we got during the lead up to The Force Awakens. I’d say it’s still pointless with Kylo/Ben in the end as you have to take in account Leia too. She sensed the death of him if she continued her Jedi training. He still died. His parents both died for nothing. He was redeemed and saved Rey but that’s it. No Skywalker lived on to continue the legacy. Instead Rey is the last one standing but she’s a Palpatine and the Republic must be established again as it was destroyed. It’s more or less the same story position as Return of the Jedi. How is everyone going to react when they find out Rey is related to Palpatine? Will it be like in the books when Leia nearly loss everything when it was revealed she was Darth Vader’s daughter? It creates so many unnecessary problems and complications. It may have been fun to see Han rogue at first but it’s regressing his character and not letting him grow up as he did across the entire Original Trilogy. He went from selfish and self centred to one of the Rebel Alliance’s most loyal members and very selfless towards Leia and his friends. It’s only natural to expect him to continue to grow. They could’ve still played with Han’s smuggler backstory under the power vacuum scenario since it’s all about crime syndicates in George’s story for example trying to overtake the Republic but not at the expense of his personal growth.

It’s all about the execution of said ideas. Why does Han need to go back to the only thing he’s good at? Is he not allowed to rise above what he worked very hard to overcome with the help of others? The Republic is gone. They’re trying to restore it just as the Rebel Alliance was trying to do. Leia is doing the same thing she was thirty years ago. She’s still fighting an Empire in so many words. With Luke though George also had him as broken but he overcame it and in the end restored the Jedi Order. It’s all about execution and respecting character growth. Instead we got a failure who passed on the mantle to Rey because the plot says she must be the last Jedi now. It doesn’t ever show us why she’s earned the right to it. It’s just given to her as the plot says she’s the protagonist like with the lightsaber, the Millennium Falcon, Luke’s X-Wing, and even Leia’s training. Leia will train a Palpatine but not her own son? Star Wars was an ecological value system before and the collective whole. It was not not just one individual collecting everything and being the only hero. Even with Anakin being the Chosen One he still needed help from Luke. Just as Han needed help with overcoming his smuggling past. Just as Leia needed help to get off the Death Star. Just as Luke needed help destroying the Death Star. It was a value system of the collective whole of people helping people.

These things just don’t sit right with me. It needs to be clear within the narrative what is going on. You shouldn’t need to read or look up supplement material to understand the story the films are trying to convey. There’s only one rare instance I find in George’s story where you may need supplement material to understand something and that’s the mystery of Sifo-Dyas. However it’s something he planned to explain in his Sequels as he was the secret apprentice of Palpatine. So it would’ve been addressed eventually and supplement material wouldn’t be needed for it.

Ulimately on my part I’m glad you enjoy the the Sequels. I genuinely wish I could see the things you see. They are pretty fun on their own merits in some ways and have some Star Wars like qualities but ulimately I find they’re lacking in consistency that makes sense within the context of the first six films.

On the state of the Republic I have to disagree with you. The Hosnian system was destroyed. The capital is gone, but the member worlds remain and have not been conquered. They are never seen to be conquered. There has been no passage of time form TFA to TLJ for them to be conquered. Some may have surrendered, but even that is not mentioned. You have the First Order Fleet trying to control things AND trying to chase down the resistance. There is no indication in the films that the First Order is actually running anything except a fear campaign, which is working and which is why none of Leia’s contacts provide any help. Looking at their actions logically, the resistance is too small to be effective or be worth saving and they everything they to protect themselves. The First Order splintered the Republic, but has not taken over. The trilogy is about saving the New Republic. It is not about starting over, but about saving what was already created. So Leia’s legacy has not been destroyed, just taken a severe hit.

And that is also why Han falls back to his old ways. Their son has fallen to the Dark Side and his wife is running the resistance in the outer rim. And if her name is tainted by the revelation of her father, where does that leave him? His return to smuggling is logical and makes sense.

Luke suffered the most when Ben turned to Kylo. His entire school was destroyed (not just the building, but the students). By his nephew no less. So his jaded attitude stems from guilt over a member of his family falling to the dark side just like his father had. And by this point he has studied the records of the TPM era Jedi and come to the same conclusion that I have that the Jedi were responsible for Anakin’s fall because they gave him no tools to wrestle with the temptations of the dark side. In the PT Anakin is just told to avoid any temptation. But he is never told what to do if there is temptation. He has fear in TPM. What is he supposed to do with that. And Luke meets the same fate as Obi-wan - losing a trusted student to the Dark Side. Anakin destroyed the temple on Coruscant and Ben destroyed the new temple. Obi-wan and Yoda went into hiding and Luke goes into hiding. He wallows in self-pity as Luke tends to do. Too much is made of his rise to the occasion in ROTJ without recognizing that he is the same person he always was with the same flaws. Just because he overcomes them at that point does not mean they can’t come back later. So we are presented with the cause of why he reverted. It is a human and believable story and very true to character. In TLJ Luke is probably the most realistic and human his character has ever been.

So all of these characters were handled very well in my opinion. Very true to OT form and very logical from the fall of the only Skywalker of the new generation. Everything that has gone wrong prior to TFA stems from Ben Solo becoming Kylo Ren and does so in a way that rings true to their humanity and rings true to how old heroes are portrayed in myths and legends.

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Luke’s sacrifice in Last Jedi is beautiful as is his letting go of his fear. The scene where he fades into the force facing a rising sun is palpable.

And its all undone in Rise of Skywalker by bringing him back to lift the X-wing in an unnecessary scene.

Rey already had the training she needed watching Luke fail according to Last Jedi, but all of a sudden we need Leia to train her. Leia suddenly a Jedi Master who never was even a Jedi Knight.

These movies don’t work in sequence.

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Rey already had the training she needed watching Luke fail according to Last Jedi, but all of a sudden we need Leia to train her. Leia suddenly a Jedi Master who never was even a Jedi Knight.

Having Leia train Rey was one of the most reasonable decisions JJ Abrams made, given what he had to work with. Rey watching Luke be a failure doesn’t count as training, or prepare her to be the grandmaster of a new Jedi Order. Her being trained by Leia, as out of left field as it is, is at least an attempt to make Rey’s power and Jedi status plausible.

But we can’t turn back. Fear is their greatest defense. I doubt if the actual security there is any greater than it was on Aquilae or Sullust. And what there is is most likely directed towards a large-scale assault.

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I always wanted to see Leia actually using her strength in the Force to use. We do get that a little in TLJ of course, but it was particularly nice to see her taking over from Luke as a Jedi teacher.

“Remember, the Force will be with you. Always.”

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JadedSkywalker said:

Luke’s sacrifice in Last Jedi is beautiful as is his letting go of his fear. The scene where he fades into the force facing a rising sun is palpable.

And its all undone in Rise of Skywalker by bringing him back to lift the X-wing in an unnecessary scene.

Rey already had the training she needed watching Luke fail according to Last Jedi, but all of a sudden we need Leia to train her. Leia suddenly a Jedi Master who never was even a Jedi Knight.

These movies don’t work in sequence.

You mean like Ben’s sacrifice in ANH was undone by him coming back in TESB and ROTJ to tell Luke things Yoda could have told him? Luke coming back as a force ghost was pretty expected and in keeping with the past. In TROS we see the Jedi Master that could have been and he is great. And I don’t see what is wrong with Leia having been trained and being able to train Rey. It answers that lingering question from ROTJ about why Luke wouldn’t have trained her. He did, but she had a vision that it was not her time.

And Leia is the one who brought Ben Solo back to the light, not Rey. Rey stabbed him and gave Leia the opening and Leia did the rest, like his vision of his father.

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The following changes would improve the Sequel Trilogy:

  • Remove Starkiller Base’s superweapon powers and its destruction. Make it just a military base. The movie should stick to the search for Luke plot.

  • When Kylo asks Palpatine how he survived, have Palpatine say, “Did Luke really think I was foolish enough to send my true body to the second Death Star?”

  • Have Palpatine say “bring the girl here” instead of “kill the girl” and have him drain Rey and Kylo as soon as they arrive rather than trying to essence transfer into Rey.

  • More world-building. Do the people of the galaxy and/or the characters know that Count Dooku and the Trade Federation were working for Palpatine?

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Hal 9000 said:

TFA said, “The prequels were stupid.”

TLJ said, “No, you’re stupid.”

TROS said, “I’ll show you stupid!”

It actually is a very fine definition 😄
Please make a meme out of it so I can steal it

So long 🙌

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Luke Skywalker has, understandably, been the center of my interest in Star Wars. So, from the moment the sequel trilogy was announced I was very interested in seeing how things have gone for him since ROTJ.

I was saddened not to get much of him in TFA, but was super excited about the promise of TLJ. Even though Luke turned out not to have successfully capitalized on his new purpose at the end of ROTJ, I’m glad his journey was mythically resonant in TLJ and found he had something to teach me in his journey. I feel TROS basically said about Luke, “You failed but taught a lesson in the process, and Rey will recapitulate your journey and incorporate this to carry it out later.”

I’m glad TLJ gave Luke a journey to go on, and one I’ve found personally very significant, even as evidenced by taking a bit of time and wrestling for me to reach that point.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Even though TLJ was a tonally and thematically inconsistent mess, it had its moments. All the Luke stuff was actually pretty good. At least the space horses were freed. Screw broom boy I guess. Sacrifice isn’t the answer, but it worked pretty well 15 minutes ago. Superman Leia had my sides in orbit. Carrie Fisher’s passing was pretty sad though. Its such a shame that’s what we have to remember her by. The moment with Luke and Leia at the end almost had me in tears. One of the reasons I haven’t revisited that movie tbh. It kinda bums me out thinking about it now.

TFA was pretty good at the time. I defended it for being derivative at the time because I felt like re-establishing the series was honestly necessary after the prequels. But in the intervening years, unfortunately that movie being so successful started the trend of “soft reboots” in Hollywood where they just remake the same movie beat for beat with the older cast. Yeah yeah, Ray was overpowered. Yeah it was dumb. Yeah a lot of the criticism towards the character isn’t in good faith. It was pretty hard even for a jaded cynic like me not to be excited for new Star Wars.

The problem is the character never had any room to grow. When the protagonist defeats the villain in the first movie, where do you go from there? In Star Wars, Luke runs away from Vader in the hanger bay. In Empire, he scores a few small hits, but gets his ass kicked, and in Jedi he matures enough to hold back his anger and not go down the same path his father did. Ray feels like her arc is a straight line. Any time she does have something going on, they hit the Voyager magic reset button.

Your parents were nobodys, come to terms with it. Lol jk you’re the space devils offspring or something. It’s so fascinating how they managed to alienate everyone and please no one. I’m still mad Finn and Poe weren’t a thing. Even the actors were pretty shocked because of how good the chemistry was between those two characters. It’s the one romance that would’ve landed.

Admittedly other than TFA I haven’t seen any of these movies since release so I’m not equip to have an in depth discussion like some of you guys. I’ll lurk moar. Hope everyone’s well with everything going on.

Luke astro-projects himself to Salt Lake Planet, gets shot at by gorilla walkers, has a non-lightsaber duel with Darth Millennial, then dies of a broken heart, inspiring broom boys throughout the galaxy to get creative with their sweeping. - DuracellEnergizer

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J0E said:

The problem is the character never had any room to grow. When the protagonist defeats the villain in the first movie, where do you go from there? In Star Wars, Luke runs away from Vader in the hanger bay. In Empire, he scores a few small hits, but gets his ass kicked, and in Jedi he matures enough to hold back his anger and not go down the same path his father did. Ray feels like her arc is a straight line.

I remember back when TFA came out, most of the criticism I’d hear going around was on how it differed from the OT, rather than how similar it was, and one of such criticisms was how it moved “the duel” forward instead of saving it for the next movies like with Luke and Vader. Another common complaint I heard was how Kylo Ren was too immature and wasn’t intimidating enough to fit the new “Vader” role, despite that clearly being a conscious choice for his character.

In that regard, I think the duel at the end of TFA is great because it didn’t just propel Rey’s character forward, but Kylo’s, and I think TLJ did a great job following that thread, showing that his defeat rocked the very foundation of his beliefs. As for Rey, the duel marks the moment she finally embraces her calling, something Luke did way earlier in ANH, and I think her journey in TLJ became more interesting for it as it wasn’t just about becoming strong enough to confront Kylo.

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Burbin said:

J0E said:

The problem is the character never had any room to grow. When the protagonist defeats the villain in the first movie, where do you go from there? In Star Wars, Luke runs away from Vader in the hanger bay. In Empire, he scores a few small hits, but gets his ass kicked, and in Jedi he matures enough to hold back his anger and not go down the same path his father did. Ray feels like her arc is a straight line.

I remember back when TFA came out, most of the criticism I’d hear going around was on how it differed from the OT, rather than how similar it was, and one of such criticisms was how it moved “the duel” forward instead of saving it for the next movies like with Luke and Vader. Another common complaint I heard was how Kylo Ren was too immature and wasn’t intimidating enough to fit the new “Vader” role, despite that clearly being a conscious choice for his character.

In that regard, I think the duel at the end of TFA is great because it didn’t just propel Rey’s character forward, but Kylo’s, and I think TLJ did a great job following that thread, showing that his defeat rocked the very foundation of his beliefs. As for Rey, the duel marks the moment she finally embraces her calling, something Luke did way earlier in ANH, and I think her journey in TLJ became more interesting for it as it wasn’t just about becoming strong enough to confront Kylo.

I mostly heard the opposite but that’s mostly because of my Dad. He would ramble on and on about how it was just a ripping off Star Wars. I actually like the Kylo stuff in the first two movies. I wasn’t trying to say Ray should have been just like Luke, I just think she doesn’t get very many character moments outside of action scene, tech jargon, or mind control. Here running away from the call to adventure and getting captured wasn’t bad, but it was quickly dropped by the time she breaks out of imprisonment. Maybe after being captured and Han dying to save her would’ve been a good way to get her to join the rebellion or something. I guess it kind of is to some extent, but it kind of feels glossed over for Han and Kylo.

TLJ actually had some good character growth for Ray. It’s just a shame ROS has to undercut everything that movie did well. I think TFA is still built on some shaky foundation with bringing back the Death Star and the duel. But I mean, it’s a Star Wars movie. Could you imagine the uproar if two lightsabers didn’t touch in that movie? The real problem with TFA isn’t really the movie itself, it’s the sequels. I probably would’ve been fine with a fan edit of TLJ if they would’ve stuck the landing on ROS.

Luke astro-projects himself to Salt Lake Planet, gets shot at by gorilla walkers, has a non-lightsaber duel with Darth Millennial, then dies of a broken heart, inspiring broom boys throughout the galaxy to get creative with their sweeping. - DuracellEnergizer

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J0E said:
I probably would’ve been fine with a fan edit of TLJ if they would’ve stuck the landing on ROS.

This is what I think is lost in the hate of the ST in general and the sentiment that they were doomed from the beginning; a good end would have forgiven all ills. Star Wars fans are indeed quick to condemn the new, but they are equally willing to contort any content to fit their canon if it takes even the smallest effort to keep with the spirit of what came before, as this community illustrates.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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NeverarGreat said:

J0E said:
I probably would’ve been fine with a fan edit of TLJ if they would’ve stuck the landing on ROS.

This is what I think is lost in the hate of the ST in general and the sentiment that they were doomed from the beginning; a good end would have forgiven all ills. Star Wars fans are indeed quick to condemn the new, but they are equally willing to contort any content to fit their canon if it takes even the smallest effort to keep with the spirit of what came before, as this community illustrates.

Pretty much a /thread

I don’t really watch any of those cringy fandom menace youtubers or whatever and I don’t interact with any Star Wars communities online other than this one. Even still I know people I play games with and saw posters around here that were almost (if not outright) rooting for the movies to fail. When TLJ came out it was like some lame “fuck you I was right” thing. Even I was pretty toxic posting around here about it.

It’s like the prequels. TPM isn’t too bad, shift some dialogue around, trim the Coruscant stuff and Jar Jar then the movie is alright (though tbh I don’t really mind the theatrical cut). Yeah Clones is pretty bad, but the two Clone Wars shows and a decent edit of Sith more than makes up for it. The prequels weren’t doomed from the start. They just needed some refinement. The sequels weren’t doomed, ROS just needed to follow up on TLJ and be a little more tight than it.

Luke astro-projects himself to Salt Lake Planet, gets shot at by gorilla walkers, has a non-lightsaber duel with Darth Millennial, then dies of a broken heart, inspiring broom boys throughout the galaxy to get creative with their sweeping. - DuracellEnergizer

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Those who don’t like these films find ways to explain why they don’t like them. That some don’t like them because they are too different and others don’t like them because they are too similar shows that both views are in they eye of the viewer. Apply the same critiques to the PT and you will get the same result. They are either too similar or too different. TPM, ANH, and TFA all have similar beats and echo each other. In each one a young person with no direction finds a mentor and before the mentor can impart very much, they die. In each one there is a space battle where the hero plays a decisive part (in TFA Rey helps plant the explosives that opens the whole for the destruciton of Starkiller base where in the other two Anakin and Luke are the fighter pilot who fires the shot that destroys the base). The hero meets the other two in the trio that carries through the trilogy. TPM doesn’t have any plans or map as a McGiffin. And I could go on, but why? I think I made my point.

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One of my problems with the ST stem from, I don’t really like the groundwork it set. You may make a point that it may be logical, but the way I see the heroes of the last trilogy regressing to their old roles, or at least very similar ones at that, I don’t really like that. That’s about my personal preference, which says the whole thing shouldn’t have existed in the first place. But who am I to say what should exist or what shouldn’t. The setup didn’t have to b like that, and the story might have well ended in ROTJ. What happened after that might have well been our imagination. (Can’t say for Legends as I didn’t read those)

You know, it’s like the 7th, Uttar Kanda of Ramayana. Go and see what happens there. Since it is a tale, they didn’t have to continue that way. Same for the ST.

Anyway, the setup, and also the way it is presented. Since a lot of plot beats I see here are very similar to the OT, I don’t really find anything that would actually make me latch onto this. Had this been presented more creatively that it may have felt like its own thing, I may have liked it, or at the very least have something to like about this. Novelty is a thing that I price a lot in a piece of work, and say what you want, the PT felt like it. It is a whole different aesthetic that made me latch to it, and also a story that is completely different from what I was presented before. There isn’t anything quite like it.

TFA was intentionally too similar to ANH, to “bring fans back”, but did TLJ have to be like that too? It may have been “surprising”, but too many plot beats from Empire, and inverted. I said it before in another post of mine, it comes off as written by someone who was too lazy to actually make a original story of his own. Just took the template of another story, and inverted some plot decisions. Very intelligent. TROS, you see where I am coming from. At least keep Palpatine dead so that Vader’s sacrifice has some meaning.

Technically, it is good enough. There nothing too amazing or bad to comment on. And the visuals are very good, I will give that. But it isn’t everything. My problem lies with the story that’s told. Simply, it doesn’t do it creatively enough. If it was very new, I am in. But this isn’t and that’s where it ends.

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A major problem with all 3 movies was Rey’s constant winning and Kylo’s constant losing.

A hero and their journey is only as good as the villain and their antagonism.

Imagine if Obi-Wan had WON the very first lightsaber duel back in 1977.

That would’ve killed Vader’s character from the start.

Kylo’s loss at the end of TFA was the first crack. Then losing against Rey again in Snoke’s room. And then being humiliated by Luke. And then losing again to Rey again 1/2 of the way through Rise. Also, her ability to beat Luke while training didn’t help any character progression either.

Rey had no consistent hero’s journey. Yes, yes, you can make all sorts of arguments about scene x or development y, they’ve been done before–the point is that the growth of the heroic character overcoming obstacles isn’t coherent. Since Kylo was neutered as a threat midway through TLJ, they had to use Palpatine to give her a new challenge, which didn’t thematically fit at all from her starting point.

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thebluefrog said:

A major problem with all 3 movies was Rey’s constant winning and Kylo’s constant losing.

A hero and their journey is only as good as the villain and their antagonism.

Imagine if Obi-Wan had WON the very first lightsaber duel back in 1977.

That would’ve killed Vader’s character from the start.

Kylo’s loss at the end of TFA was the first crack. Then losing against Rey again in Snoke’s room. And then being humiliated by Luke. And then losing again to Rey again 1/2 of the way through Rise. Also, her ability to beat Luke while training didn’t help any character progression either.

Rey had no consistent hero’s journey. Yes, yes, you can make all sorts of arguments about scene x or development y, they’ve been done before–the point is that the growth of the heroic character overcoming obstacles isn’t coherent. Since Kylo was neutered as a threat midway through TLJ, they had to use Palpatine to give her a new challenge, which didn’t thematically fit at all from her starting point.

I agree completely. People often forget that Palpatine was brought back mainly out of desperation. TLJ ended with Kylo standing alone as the main villain (Hux having been made a joke), but the films hadn’t done nearly enough to prepare the character to fill that role. So, they had a villain void going into Episode IX, and tried to fix that by transplanting an OT villain into the story.

And of course, having your protagonist consistently outmatch your antagonist is generally a bad idea. There are exceptions, and ways to make an overpowered hero work in a plot, but the sequel trilogy didn’t handle that well. And a Star Wars story really needs a strong villain in order to work.

The sequels treat Rey’s journey as being very similar to Luke’s, when it really shouldn’t be. While Luke’s journey was more about him growing his power, Rey’s journey should have been about her learning to control her innate power. That’s one way you can make a powerful protagonist work. TLJ had some faint hints of this idea, but failed to commit to it.

But we can’t turn back. Fear is their greatest defense. I doubt if the actual security there is any greater than it was on Aquilae or Sullust. And what there is is most likely directed towards a large-scale assault.